Insole Support, Hip Pain, and You

Posted by Jesse Flores on February 26, 2019

Many people struggle with hip pain and hip bursitis. Flat feet, overpronation, muscle imbalances, and genetics each contribute to the misalignment that causes the pain. Thankfully, with a little effort - and the right support - you can reduce (or even eliminate) hip pain altogether.

What Causes Hip Pain

There are many reasons why our hips and lower back hurt, including genetics, flat feet, overpronation, and imbalanced muscles.

What these all have in common? Excess torque.

When there’s misalignment at the foundation of the body, it causes excess torque, which pulls the body in one direction or another. This displaces weight and pressure unevenly across the body, causing one side of the body to work harder than the other.

Over time, this leads to excess wear on one side of the body, which then reverberates throughout other parts of the body. In some cases, hip pain may actually be transferred up to the upper back and neck.

It’s all connected.

Muscle Imbalances & Genetics

Genetics can be an important contributor to hip pain.

For example, you may be prone to over-pronation or be prone to walk in a way that adds excess stress to your body. In these cases, you want to make sure you’ve got the right shoe support, but may also have to re-learn how to walk properly.

In other cases, you may genetically have one leg that’s slightly longer than the other. Even a discrepancy of just ¼” can, over time, lead to the kind of misalignment that puts excess torque on your body.

In those instances, you may need more than just great insoles, but actual orthotics recommended by a doctor.

We might see this often with people who lift weights; they might have overdeveloped quads and underdeveloped hamstrings. Most of our muscles have opposing muscles that keep us in balance. If we exercise one muscle group without considering it’s opposing muscle group, we can develop imbalances.

Like the imbalanced gait, these imbalanced muscles lead to excess torque and excess pain.

How to Manage Hip Pain

In order to manage hip pain, we need to take a three-pronged, holistic approach: we must stretch, strengthen, and support.

Habit 1: Stretching

Occasionally it happens that our bodies are too strong or too tight in one particular area. This pulls on other muscles and parts of the body, resulting in imbalances, torque, and misalignment.

Stretching these tight muscles on a daily basis can go a long way to realigning your body and decreasing hip pain.

As an aside, one area that’s commonly overlooked are the calf muscles. Tight calves can really pull and misalign your body. Especially if the soleus gets tight. This small muscle is often overlooked and, being tight, can pull you out of alignment.

Remember, your hips are in the middle of your body, so tight muscles below it, at the body’s foundation, reverberate throughout the rest of the body.

Habit 2: Strengthen

While stretching can help with misalignment, it’s important not to overlook strengthening. Muscle imbalances often occur because one muscle is strong than it’s opposing muscle.

Doing exercises that focus on one side of the body and then the other are a helpful way to make sure you’re addressing imbalances. For example, single-leg squat exercises can help improve balance and alignment on both sides of the body, rather than allowing one side to overcompensate for weakness in the other.

A few great exercises to try include:

Calf raises

One legged stands

One legged squats

Using your toes to pick up marbles (to strengthen the soleus)

Lunges

Habit 3: Support

Finally, you want to make sure you have the right shoe for your foot type. The shoe has to have good support. If your foot is rolling in, you want to make sure you have good support under the arch to prevent that from happening.

How to Tell What’s Causing Your Pain

One of the challenges with hip pain is telling whether it’s weak or tight muscles, genetics, or your behavior that’s causing the pain. In many cases, you may not be able to self-diagnose it.

Some questions to ask, though, are:

Have you ever had hip or knee replacement surgery? It’s very common for leg length discrepancy to occur as a result of this operation.

Do you run the same route frequently? Especially if the terrain is more dirt than asphalt, you could be running an uneven path consistently enough that gets your body in the habit of adjusting to the awkward terrain.

Are you carrying or lifting more weight than normal? The more weight you carry, the more pressure you put on the misaligned areas.

Do your shoes have good support? Different shoes can cause your hips to be positioned differently, contributing to misalignment (we’re looking at you, high heels!)

If you’re still unsure, we recommend looking throughout your community to see if you can find a sports injury clinic. For example, Playmakers in Lansing, Michigan offers free clinics to help people assess these very issues. Many communities have similar offerings.

Get the Right Support & Get Started

There is no one-stop “cure-all” for solving hip pain. Stretching, strengthening, and support are each key component to reducing - or eliminating - the pain. Orange Insoles can help you to find the right support, so you can take your first step one the journey to healing.

Always consult your physician before beginning any exercise program. This general information is not intended to diagnose any medical condition or to replace your healthcare professional. If you experience persistent pain, consult your healthcare provider.

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